Huge test for the Bobcats as they travel to Waco to take on a ranked Baylor team on Friday night.
TXST News
- Head Coach Danny Kaspar notched his 100th win as the head coach at TXST with the win vs. Prairie View on Tuesday night. He is the 3rd TXST HC ever to record 100 wins. Kaspar is 100-99 all-time at TXST, which doesn’t sound impressive. But his road to a winning record was a slow one: 8-23 after year 1, 22-40 after 2 years, 37-56 after 3 years. From year 4 to now he owns a 63-43 record.
- Nijal Pearson scored 23 in the win over Prairie View, ranking him 4th on the all-time TXST scoring list with 1,577 career points. He’s 45 points behind the great Dante Mathis for #3 on the list.
- Injury Update:
- SG Caleb Asberry missed the last two games battling an ankle injury and I think a concussion as well. He’s expected to be ready to go for Baylor, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on a minutes restriction.
- PG Mason Harrell went down late in the game against Prairie View clutching his left shoulder and did not return. The injury isn’t considered serious and he should be good to go vs. Baylor.
Scouting Baylor
Baylor was ranked 16th to start the season, but lost in Alaska to #20 Washington and was dropped in the rankings to #24. Baylor is 1-1 on the young campaign. Before losing to Washington 67-64, they trounced Central Arkansas 105-61 in Waco.
Last year Baylor went 20-14 overall and 10-8 in the Big 12, finishing alone in 4th place. They went 1 and done in the Big 12 tournament, but still received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament as a 9-seed where they beat Syracuse in the first round before losing to 1-seed Gonzaga in the 2nd round to end their season. They were picked to finish 2nd in the preseason coaches poll and received 1 first place vote. Kansas was picked to win (for the 9th straight year) and Baylor was picked ahead of Texas Tech, who lost in the national championship game last year. Baylor is expected to possibly have a huge year this year.
The player expected to lead the Bears this year is 6’10” Jr. F Tristan Clark. Clark was named to the preseason all-Big 12 team. He’s started 44 games over the first 2 years of his career and scored in double figures in 21 of them. His 66.3% FG% for his career is on pace to break the Baylor all-time record. He was shooting an absurd 73.7% from the field last year before going down with a season-ending injury. Coming out of HS in 2017 he was named the 6A player of the year and 247 had him as the 8th rated recruit in the state and 106th in the nation. He only played in 14 games last year before the injury but averaged 14.6 PPG and 6.3 RPG, 2nd on the team last year in both marks. He’s off to a slow start so far this year however, averaging just 5.0 PPG and 4.5 RPG over the first two games. With his size advantage over anyone on TXSTs roster I’m sure Scott Drew will be looking to get Clark going vs. the Bobcats.
The leading scorer so far this season, and by a wide margin, is 6’3″ soph. G Jared Butler. Butler is pouring in 24.0 PPG so far, has shot 12/18 on threes, and has a team leading 9 assists. Last year he made the Big 12 all-freshman team scoring 10.2 PPG and tied the team lead in made 3s with 60. He became a starter the game after Clark went down with his injury and started the final 20 games of the season, scoring 12.9 PPG over those 20 games. This guy can shoot. He shot 42.2% from 3 in conference play. On top of that he can handle the ball and play either guard spot. Really dangerous player.
Newcomer MaCio Teague is the 2nd leading scorer at 13 PPG. Teague is a 6’3″ Jr. G that is the other big 3-point weapon for the Bears, having made 5 of 12 attempts so far this year. He sat out last year after playing his first 2 seasons at UNC Asheville, where he started 66 of 67 games and was named Big South Freshman of the year his first season before leading the Bulldogs in scoring at 16.7 PPG as a sophomore. His 42.5% 3-point % led the Big South. Both Butler and Teague can light it up from 3.
Two other players to watch for Baylor are 6’9″ senior Freddie Gillespie and the top bench player in 6’3″ Sr. G DeVonte Bandoo. Gillespie is averaging 12.5 PPG and is the leading rebounder so far with 9.0 per game. He’s a former walk-on who made 11 starts last year and is now likely an everyday starter for the first time in his career as a senior. Bandoo is the 4th Baylor player averaging double figure scoring with 12.0 per game. He is, wait for it, yet another deadly 3-point shooter who’s made 5 of 9 attempts so far this year. He was 6th in the Big 12 last year in 3-point shooting at 39.2%. That’s 3 guys we won’t be able to get any space from 3, an area of concern defensively for Kaspar teams at times over the years.
Baylor is 125-16 in non-conference home games over Scott Drew’s tenure, and 60-4 in their last 64. They’ve made the postseason the last 8 seasons. Baylor has been ranked in 12 of the last 13 seasons, they were only ranked twice ever prior to Drew’s arrival. In short, Drew has turned them into a nationally relevant program. Want some good news though? Kaspar is 1-0 all-time vs. Baylor as a head coach. Beating the Bears in 2003 as the head coach of SFA.
Baylor has ranked in the top 25 in adjusted offensive efficiency in 7 of the last 8 years, which basically means they shoot well, limit turnovers, rebound offensively (they’ve been top 10 in offensive rebounding for 6 straight seasons!), and get to the FT line. That’s a bit surprising to me honestly as Baylor is a team I’ve seen play plenty in the Scott Drew era. To me they always come off as a team that likes to run with minimal identity offensively that just out-athletes you with great shooters and dominant bigs. That may still be the case and their athletes are able to make the stats look good, but maybe Drew has more of a gameplan offensively than my untrained eyes can see. Either way, Baylor is always an extremely dangerous team offensively. All their guards can shoot from deep and you can’t leave them open which means its tough to double team guys like Clark and Gillespie who are going to have huge size advantages (2 inches each) over the guys guarding them for TXST. TXST is known for its defense under Kaspar, this may be one of his biggest challenges in his career creating a defensive gameplan to slow Baylor down.
Last Meeting
Its been 17 years since Texas State and Baylor have played in basketball. Baylor won that last meeting 92-71 and owns either a 12-3 or 14-3 all time record vs. TXST, depending on which school you ask. The Bobcats do have a fairly recent win in the series however winning 70-62 in Waco in 1998, the 3rd most recent meeting before tonight.
Odds/Time/TV
Baylor opened as a 17.5 point favorite yesterday, but its moved to 16 points as of this morning.
Tip-off is scheduled at 8pm on ESPN+. The TV broadcast will have Baylor announcers. If that annoys you, you can try the ol sync Bill Culhane’s radio call over the game with your TV muted trick as the TXST radio call will be on 1300 the zone and KTSW.
